By Nate Wolf

Figma's first year as a public company hasn't gone well. Now the design software maker has an activist investor to deal with.

Hedge fund Findell Capital Management, which has an undisclosed stake in Figma, issued a letter Thursday to Figma's chief executive and board, urging changes at the company. Figma needs to take steps to shed its unwarranted reputation as an artificial-intelligence "loser," Findell argued.

Figma didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Figma shares surged 6.2% to $22.67 on Thursday -- a welcome gain for a stock down 31% from its initial public offering price of $33 a share last July. Shares have tumbled ever since spiking 250% on the company's first day of trading.

As if the price volatility and fears about AI weren't enough, the activist campaign underlines one downside of an IPO. Public companies have to answer to any number of potential shareholders, and battles with investors can play out for the whole world to see.

As far as activist campaigns go, Findell's isn't the worst to manage. The firm isn't a widely feared activist giant like Elliott Management or Trian Partners, and its stake is likely small. The firm's requests, meanwhile, don't include extreme changes like selling the company or ousting CEO Dylan Field.

Rather, Findell urged Figma to trim its product suite down to its core design, coding, and virtual whiteboard tools. The firm also called for a reduction in research and design costs and stock-based compensation. The latter equaled about 8% of revenue in the most recent quarter.

The final request directly addressed potential disruption by AI design and coding tools. Anthropic product executive Mike Krieger resigned from Figma's board on April 14, three days before Anthropic released Figma competitor Claude Design, Findell pointed out.

"This pattern of events raises serious corporate governance concerns," wrote Findell's Brian Finn, adding that two remaining board members appear to be investors in Anthropic. "We believe the Board should conduct an independent investigation to evaluate whether Anthropic benefitted from any improper use of Figma's confidential information."

Anthropic didn't immediately respond to Barron's request for comment.

Figma is one of a relatively low number of companies to test the public markets in the last few years. Just 90 companies went public in the U.S. in 2025, according to data from University of Florida professor Jay Ritter. That is down from an average of more than 400 per year throughout the 1990s. The median age of businesses going public in 2025 was 12 years, well above the historical median of 9 years.

Activist challenges aren't a major reason why start-ups stay private for longer. Academic research has pointed to a decline in business dynamism, abundant private funding, intangible-focused investing, regulatory costs, and other factors behind the downturn in IPOs. Good, old-fashioned volatility may be another explanation.

But scrutiny from hedge funds certainly isn't something executives look forward to. And with private funding serving as an attractive alternative to an IPO, why deal with frustrated investors, regulators, and sell-side analysts if you don't need to?

"Public companies operate under constant scrutiny: quarterly earnings pressure, extensive reporting requirements, and growing compliance costs, " Ryan Ferrell, an advisor at TritonPoint Wealth, wrote in a blog post earlier this year. "For many founders and management teams, that environment can be distracting."

Add another distraction to the list for Figma.

Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com

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May 28, 2026 12:15 ET (16:15 GMT)

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